


fake it til you make it

by worldofpains



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fake Character Death, Hurt Peter Parker, Kidnapping, Medical Experimentation, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Presumed Dead, Protective Tony Stark, Seizures, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, and a couple shots of tequila
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-25 18:14:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18266780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldofpains/pseuds/worldofpains
Summary: Tony trusted that Peter's metabolism would burn through even the worst drugs known to a man, including a botched attempt at the super soldier serum.Maybe he shouldn't have, or the kid wouldn't end up dying right in front of his eyes.





	1. Chapter 1

Tony probably should have seen this coming.

Being connected to Tony Stark, son of Howard Stark, ex-weapons manufacturer, Merchant of Death, is a hazard in itself.

It was about time that another group of people desperate to seek their revenge came to unleash their anger on him. It had happened before--once, twice, a dozen times. After he became Iron Man, even before he was Iron Man--he always got out of whatever hellhole he got caught up in, with or without help.

This time was slightly different, because he wasn't actually alone.

When he woke up and discovered that there were pinpricks assaulting the skin all over his body, a pounding headache and all four of his limbs restrained, he groaned. He then paused and collected his thoughts, trying to piece back the last of his memories before he passed out, as well as studying his surroundings at the same time.

His body was littered with small cuts. The room was dark and wet and smelled like sewage, and he scrunched his nose in disgust. The restraints on his limbs were pretty tight, but he could try to get out of it once he regained his wits. The headsche was a sign that he at least banged his head a couple of times on the way here--maybe that was how the kidnappers assaulted him. That didn't explain why he was feeling so slow and sluggish and fucking stupid, though--he'd banged his head harder inside the Iron Man suit and he'd always walked it off. Now it took a lot of effort just to move his thumbs and a longer time to study his surroundings.

And he hadn't yet remembered how he'd gotten here.

Thinking made his brain hurt, which was ridiculous. He was in a car, he guessed. Going home from... somewhere. Someone had been talking to him and he'd laughed and. Huh. Who had been there with him and where were they now? More flashes of colors assaulted the back of his eyelids and he winced. He'd crashed the car and that was how he got the possible concussion. No, no, something had crashed into the car. Someone was yelling--not him, because that voice had called out his name. He'd been half asleep, feeling fingers clapping at his face, trying to rouse him. A curse, and then blankness.

 _Rewind. Rewind_.

He could faintly hear the voice again, from the blurry memory. Calling out his name. Except it wasn't really his name. It was...

"Mr. Stark!"

Tony gasped. "Peter? Peter!" he tried to yell, but it sounded garbled, like he was speking from inside a trashcan, mouth filled with garbage.

He'd been in the car with Peter, driving him back home to his aunt's apartment in Queens, after a weekend in the Compound. Peter had warned him that he'd started to feel weird, his spidey sense acting up. Tony had brushed it off, and then, _Mr. Stark!_ Something hit the back of his car, and everything was woozy after that.

He tried to move his head around and called the kid's name, but his mouth felt like cotton. Fuck, he was fucking drugged to the gills. That was why he was so slow. There was a fog in the space of his head. It was fucking awful. With his head hung low, he could see his newly attached (and improved) nano reactor, but he'd need to tap it with a specific sequence to activate it and his arms were both cuffed at his sides and his brain couldn't remember what the sequence was.

"Mr. Stark!" a hiss. "Mr. Stark! I'm here. Hey. Look up, please, sir."

Tony made a sound similar to "umngfg?" and tried to lift his head up. From across the room, a mop of curls greeted him, and two bright brown eyes staring back at him, fully conscious, fully aware. Of course the drugs hadn't worked on the kid. He could probably break out of the restraints too, if he wanted to.

"Thank god you're okay. I've been trying to wake you up but you're too far away." Peter sighed while Tony blinked. He continued whispering when Tony stayed silent. "I don't know what to do, Mr. Stark. I was thinking of getting us out but I'm not wearing my suit and I know you told me I'm not s'pposed to fight outside of it. I don't have the webshooters with me either. I've been trying to listen to the conversations and there are too much of them and I don't even know who took us but I don't think they're just your usual half-assed kidnappers looking for ransom money. They... they looked serious, Mr. Stark!"

Tony sighed and let the kid blabber away, but mostly because he wasn't in condition to shut him the hell up anyway. He'd been in many serious situation before, and he'd always managed to get out with little harm anyway.

"They injected us both with something. I woke up quicker than you because, you know, weird spider DNA perks, but I knew I wasn't supposed to wake up yet so I just kinda pretended to be asleep. It knocked me out for, what, two minutes tops? I've been pretending to be asleep since they carried us out of your car, how crazy is that? What do you think, Mr. Stark? I can try to get us out of here but I don't think you're very well right now. I can't fight these goons while carrying you, I might drop you and that would just be terrible."

He tried to reply but all he could manage was, "Mngfngf."

"Yeah, I thought so too." Peter sighed. "That's okay. We'll just wait until you're well enough to walk and I'll break out of these cuffs and break you out. It'll be easy, Mr. Stark. We'll be OK."

How pathetic was he now, that a fifteen year-old kid was the one trying to reassure him as they both were stuck in a kidnapping situation. Tony still felt like half of the insides of his head was filled with cloud so he didn't even bother trying to respond.

He tried to ask Peter if he was okay, and through his mumbled nonsense, somehow the kid understood anyway and answered, "I'm fine, Mr. Stark. Don't you worry 'bout me. Superpowers and all that," he said with a bright grin, and Tony's chest fluttered with relief.

Peter suddenly sat up straight and murmurs, "Shit, I think they're coming!"

Then, in front of Tony's eyes, Peter perfectly slumped where he was sat against the wall, only twitching a little in sluggish movements, moaning in pain as the door jerked open. In walked two men in lab coats, one with greying hair and thick glasses, and the other carrying some sort of tray full of tubes and syringes. Tony's dumbed down brain subbed them as Grey and Tubes.

"Good. They're both still subdued. It seems the drug is perfectly working. Should we go on Phase Two?"

"Sir, it looks like Stark has woken up," Tubes interjected.

"Ah. Nice of you to join us, Stark." The way Grey spat out his name, thick with contempt. Nothing new about that. It was also nothing new when he began to launch into a monologue, airing out Tony's past mistakes like dirty laundry, listing out the things Tony had already known about himself, their plans to take over the world, blah blah blah, and it was easy to tune him out with half of his brain switched off like this.

Even with half his brain, Tony managed to get out a few things from the monologue. He was taken by a group of scientist led by somebody Tony had fired from a very long time ago, somebody in his Stark Industries's old division centered in biotech weapons--something Tony never even really approved of, and had gotten rid of as soon as Stane was out the picture. It was your classic villain origin story tale, one that didn't even catch Tony's interest in a bit.

Clearly, their organization wasn't that advanced, since their headquarters were based in a goddamn dumpster, so Tony wasn't all that worried. Whatever it was that he had been injected with, his own team of biological scientists back in SI could probably create the antidote in five minutes. It only worked well because he was baseline human in his 50s with many known medical ailments--Peter wasn't a bit affected by whatever it was. Tony wasn't at all nervous.

As the monologue went on and on, Tony finally regained feelings in all of his limbs. Slowly, but surely. As soon as it happened, the fog in his head dissipated quicker than he had thought. Still, following Peter's move, he faked being half-conscious while calculating ways to get out of here, stealing glances at the hallway that was clear from the open doors.

True to Peter's guess, while this shady place was tiny and underground, there were many men littered about, some in white lab coats and some in low quality combat suit of some sorts. Obviously they had reinforcements ready to fight them back in case they tried to escape, but they stupidly had Iron Man and Spider-Man in custody in the same room, so who was winning?

That being said, Tony couldn't be too hasty to escape. There were still many men out there, so he still had to plan. Plus, letting Peter's enhanced ability known was very much the last resort--who knew how many of these men would survive and learned Spider-Man's identity if they weren't careful enough.

Tony only snapped his attention back at the two men when they began referencing to Peter.

"Too bad you had to involve a kid into this. I didn't realize you had someone else in the car. I apologize about that. But, seeing as we're all already here, I'd say, the more the merrier! More test subjects are always good, right?" Grey droned on.

"Test s'j'ts?" Tony asked, feigning a fatigued slur in his words. "What ya gon' do t' us?"

"Nothing harmful, Stark. Not yet at this stage, at least. We've created our own version of a supersoldier serum, and we'd just love to see if it works. It's nothing like the one your father helped create, but we're quite optimistic that the outcome would be similar."

"Why me?"

"Why you? Why, I proposed the development of this idea years and years ago, Stark. A breakthrough in science. Continuing the legacy your father left behind. Something I know I'm able to accomplish, had I had sufficient funds. You outright rejected me, and fired me because you couldn't have someone else steal the spotlight from you."

What utter bullshit. Tony vaguely remembered having to deal with a rogue scientist in SI who had been getting obsessive with throwing money on a crazy ideas and it sounded so familiar to Grey's story. He still thought he'd made the right decision to get rid of him, because a couple of years later, the Abomination and the Hulk had happened.

Still, Grey was so certain that he'd created a working serum, and he was about to test it on both Tony and Peter. It was slowly getting into the dangerous zone, so he had to build a plan quickly before it happened.

"Although, I'm curious. Who is really this boy, hm? Is he a son of yours? A ward?"

Tony gritted his teeth when Grey crouched down to grab Peter's head up, the kid groaning in response. He knew Peter was faking it, but it still made his heart race. They gotta get out of here.

"He's just a kid. Leave him alone."

It was probably his protective tone that sparked even more interest in Grey's eyes. The scientist raised an eyebrow and turned Peter's head around, studying him like a test animal.

"He looks enough like you. Have you been hiding a secret child all these years long?"

"He's just an intern."

"Ah. A very young Stark Industries intern, isn't he? Curious. You were so eager to get rid of me and my ideas and now you're spending your wasted attention on children like him. What can he do?"

"So much better than what you could even imagine to offer," Tony growled. Grey only smiled wider.

"I see the drugs have finally worn off. I thought it'd last longer. Oh, well, the kid's still out. Maybe it's just that... contraption your chest interacting with my sedatives, woke you up sooner." Tony almost wanted to snort. The irony. Gray continued, "Speaking of..."

The scientist trailed off and stood up, and walked toward Tony instead. Tubes followed behind, still carrying the tray. Gray stopped just in front of Tony, pointing at the nano reactor on his chest, but not quite touching it.

"You don't really seem like a viable test subject, Stark. I'm afraid this will interfere with the test results. Your intern seems a better match. He's healthy and young, just a shy younger than Steve Rogers when he underwent Project Rebirth."

Tony froze for a second before his heart started hammering in his chest. No fucking way would he allow those scientists lay a hand on Peter.

"I'll be back in a second. Gotta prepare for the procedure. You may make yourself comfortable, Stark. I'm giving you the front seat." He smiled. "Just sit and watch as the magic happens."

As soon as Grey and Tubes were out, Peter's eyes snapped open. "Mr. Stark! It's okay! They think I'm just a normal human, but we both know my metabolism will burn their drugs quicker than they blink. It's way way better than Cap's, remember?"

"No way I'm letting them touch you, kid." Tony tugged at the restraints. "Peter. Get me out. We're leaving--"

"No, no, no, we don't have much time, Mr. Stark! I can't get out of these and let them know my powers and I can't let you fight these guys alone. Just wait it out, trust me, it's gonna be oka--they're coming!" Peter slumped back and Tony growled.

Instead of more scientists, the goons walked in and situated themselves in each corners of the room, with full gears and carrying weapons on their shoulders. One of them was stood next to him. Tony gritted his teeth and admitted Peter was right. They would have gotten shot quicker than Peter could get out of his restraints, get Tony out of his, and activate his nano suit. They just had to wait it out.

Gray and Tubes walked back in, now with two more people in lab coats, rolling in an empty gurney and a bunch of equipments. They forcefully shook Peter awake, and the kid fake-groaned and gave an unreadable look towards Tony as he was being carried onto the gurney. The kid widened his eyes a number of times, as if trying to convey a message, and Tony only stared back in confusion. He tugged on his own restraints some more, hating the way he wasn't strong enough to rip them off.

"This will be a completely painless procedure, Stark, so no worries. He will just fall asleep a helpless teenager, and wake up a super soldier."

Tony watched as they placed electrodes all over Peter--his chest, his temples. Peter wasn't restrained anymore, but he wasn't fighting against the scientists, and it pissed Tony off. He couldn't do shit himself because he was restrained. There was nothing he could do but watch.

As they connected tubes and wires all over his body, Peter was breathing hard as if he was in panic, chest heaving up and down. They had put a nasal cannula on Peter's face to help him breathe easier. Tony hoped for his own sake that the kid was only faking it.

"Some sedatives, just to calm him down," Grey murmured a while later as he injected a clear liquid into the tube attached to Peter's arm. Peter's breaths immediately slowed down, and Tony clamped on his jaw. Please be faking it. Please be faking it.

"That's good, kid. Stark, what's his name?" Grey asked, and when Tony remained silent, the goon next to him yanked his head back. "I ask you, what's his name?"

"Peter," Tony spat out.

"Peter. Nice kid. You're doing so good." He turned to his scientists. "Are we ready?"

"Yes, doctor."

"Peter. Can you hear me?"

Two brown eyes stared up at the scientist in confusion. "Yeah. Whaz'gn'on?"

"We're about to inject the serum into your system in about a minute. How are you feeling?"

"Mmmmh. Sleepy." The doe eyes blinked a couple of time. "Where'z Mr. St'k?"

"Just over there. He'll be watching you become the world's greatest super soldier."

Tony scoffed, but stopped short as the kid's eyes found him. For a moment, he was sure he saw clear awareness and consciousness in those eyes, but it turned sleepy and unfocused not even a second later.

After fussing with the equipments some more, one of the scientists held up an enormous syringe filled with a bright yellow liquid. Tony's breath sped up.

"Don't fucking do it. Don't touch him. I will ruin you." Tony fiddled with the cuffs. "Stay away from him."

"Don't worry, Stark. It's all going to go smoothly. You'll thank me later."

Tony watched as the contents of the syringe was poured into Peter's body as he tugged hard on his restraints. Peter stayed relaxed on the gurney, eyes closed, and for a while Tony felt relieved.

Until a minute later, when the brown eyes opened and Peter said quietly, "It's cold. It's so cold, what's happening?"

"It's just the initial sensation. It'll wear off in a minute," Gray replied confidently, before injecting Peter with the second syringe. "Aaaand, phase two, complete. We just gotta wait and watch."

"Let me out. Let me the fuck out," Tony growled. Peter was shivering from the cold sensation, and Tony was losing his patience. The sight of Peter lying helpless on the gurney only fueled his anger and he yanked his hands from the handcuffs. "I swear if anything happens to my kid--"

A choked off gasp interrupted him, and Tony could only watch in horror as Peter began to arch his back clear off the gurney.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO HIM? LET ME THE FUCK OUT! PETER! PETER!"

It seemed like that wasn't the expected reaction from the injection. The scientists all paled and took a step backwards, including Grey. One of them started to flip on the papers on his clipboard, looking for possible causes.

Peter's neck bent backwards, creating a loud noise as his head hit the metal gurney. His body was a perfect curve above the gurney, rigid and locked at the joints. His arms were thrusting out straight, rigidly, fingers curled like claws. His face was an open mixture of pain and fear, and Tony lost it when those brown eyes started to roll to the back of his head and he began to choke harshly.

"Shit! This wasn't supposed to happen. Did you inject the right serum, Walter?!"

The scientists were discussing in panic and Tony was crying as Peter started to look like he'd stopped breathing. Peter's body had begun to tremble from the force of his muscle rigidity and Tony couldn't do squat about it.

He should have never let them touch Peter. This was his fault. His fault.

All of a sudden, Peter dropped back down on the gurney, head limply falling to the side where Tony could see. His eyes were open, half rolled back, and Tony just sobbed.

His heart monitor, however, still showed a somewhat stable heart rhythm, just slightly elevated. As the scientists began to breathe in relief, everything went to hell.

Peter's body began to spasm and he started gasping for air. The beeps on the heart monitor were accelerating, and now they were trying to keep Peter's body from launching out of the gurney as he convulsed.

Peter was convulsing.

Tony screamed and tugged his hands as he watched his kid being tortured in front of his eyes. Peter's body contorted and twisted painfully, gasps loud and wet as saliva began to pour out of his gaping mouth. His chest was jerking up and down, head repeatedly hitting the gurney as he shook. His limbs kicked out straight and then curled inwards rapidly, as if he no longer had control of his body, and kicked and curled and kicked and curled over and over again. It must hurt so bad, because Peter's face was twitching in agony, and choked off screams escaped his mouth as he gasped. 

Then, with a final, painful heave of air, Peter's chest jackknifed towards the ceiling, shook rigidly for a couple of seconds, and then he dropped back down on the gurney with a long, pitched whine that came out of his chest along with his breath. He was still.

Tony waited, and waited and waited for the chest to move again, but ten seconds later it stayed still.

Peter wasn't breathing. 

With wide eyes, Tony watched as the beeps from the heart monitor slowed down... and down... and down... and down...

No. No. _No_.

"PETER!"

With a renewed, blind, white hot rage, Tony wrenched his left hand out of the handcuff with a loud _SNAP_! and then tapped his reactor. For a quick moment he felt a shooting pain just near his shoulder, but soon a gauntlet was formed in one hand and he blasted all the armored men in the room until they all fell, then punched Grey in the face until he was unconscious. His full Iron Man armor completely formed like a cocoon, releasing him from the handcuffs.

The commotion called for more of the armored men inside the room, and like a man on a rampage, Tony blasted and punched and kicked every single one of them.

He didn't know how long it took until every last bit of them was down, but as soon as nobody was shooting at him anymore, he shot back toward the gurney where Peter lay, and froze.

"Peter?" Tony retracted his right hand gauntlet and his helmet. "Peter? It's okay. Everyone's down. We can get out."

The heart monitor was emitting a long, stready, monotonous whine. Peter's arms and legs had curled inwards, towards his chest, as if his body was trying to fold into itself. His hands were both in fists, tucked atop his chest, underneath his chin. His toes are curled tight. Tony tried not to associate it with how patients of brain damage often exhibited an abnormal posturing in their bodies, because Peter was okay and he was only faking dead.

"Peter, hey. Playtime's over. You can wake up now." Tony reached out a trembling hand, about to rub Peter's hand and straighten it out of its curled position.

Tony jerked back in surprise. Peter's skin was ice cold.

"No, no, Peter, kiddo, joke's over. It's done. We're going home." Tony was starting to sob now. "Pete, c'mon. C'mon, hey, wake up. Wake the fuck up!"

Peter remained unmoving, his body rigid and curled, and Tony wailed.

He picked the boy up and blasted out of the underground laboratory. The boy remained rigid and still in his arms as he barked for FRIDAY to remotely control his suit and soon enough, he arrived at the compound and began yelling out for help.

As soon as Peter was out of his hands, Tony retracted his armor back into the nano reactor, and immediately fell onto his knees.

Someone caught him, just as he fell. He didn't know who--but he was warm unlike Peter's hand. Suddenly, Tony realized just how dizzy he was. There were white spots in front of him, and pain shot up all over his left upper chest.

He grabbed at it with his right hand and found warm blood. Huh. Maybe he was shot by one of the guards. He couldn't be sure. At least this much he knew: he was still alive.

Unlike his kid, who was cold as a freezing lake, eyes closed and so, so  _still._

With that thought, a sob wrenched out of Tony's chest, and he blacked out.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Tony opened his eyes, he was greeted with the white ceiling and the smell of antiseptic.

It took a while for his thoughts to regroup. Tony blinked and moved his hands--a little numb, but free--and looked down to see himself clad in a light blue hospital gown, a small Stark Industries logo at the bottom, and his left shoulder wrapped in gauze covered in spots of blood.

_Car crash. Taken hostage. Weird scientists. Peter._

As soon as the realization hit him, his lips began to tremble and he closed his eyes. He let his head fall back on the pillow underneath, tears slowly falling onto the fabric. He tried to keep it silent--he couldn't even remember the last time he cried, he didn't even shed a tear back when he woke up with a car battery attached to his chest--but the tears wouldn't stop. He didn't know how long he lay there, shaking and in tears, but he eventually heard the sound of the door opening and the soft sounds of shoes clicking on the floor.

"Oh, Tony." Pepper's voice sounded from the doorway. "Honey, what's wrong? Are you in pain? Bruce! Bruce, come get Helen, I think something's wrong!"

He felt Pepper's hands gently patting the sides of his face, wiping his tears from his cheeks, trying to find out what was wrong. _Everything is wrong, Pepper. Peter's gone and it's all my fault._

He shouldn't have listened to Peter, shouldn't have let that stupid scientist touch Peter. Tony blindly reached out to Pepper, who couldn't do anything but let Tony's head fall into her chest, her arms gently wrapping around his body so that she wouldn't aggravate his wounds.

"Pep," he managed to whisper once he'd stopped shaking. He was feeling woozy, and his left arm had started to throb. "Peter... Peter..."

"I know, Tony. It's alright. Hush." Pepper whispered back, and Tony shook his head rapidly. How could anything be alright?

"I think the drugs are wearing off, he could be in a lot of pain," Tony heard Bruce say from the side of his bed, just moments before the pain in his arm started to numb down.

"I just gave him another dose, Dr. Banner," Helen replied, just as softly. Her voice sounded so far away, and everything was hazy.

No, no. He was being drugged again. He didn't want this.

"Sssh, it's alright, Tony. You're just in shock. What did they do to you, honey?" Pepper asked, rubbing his head softly. By now, Tony was starting to slump back on his bed, the effects of the drugs taking him away from reality. He felt Pepper and Bruce carefully helping him lay back down and pulled up the thin blanket under his chin. His eyes drooped as his breaths evened out. He was starting to fall asleep again.

"Peter..."

 

* * *

 

"What happened? Did Tony rip his stitches?"

"I don't think so. It didn't seem to bleed anew."

"Should we move him here?"

"Steve said he's up already. He's just cleaning up and will be here after."

"Yeah, maybe that'll help calm Tony down."

"I hope so."

 

* * *

 

When Tony rose to consciousness once again, he opted to keep his eyes closed. Even then, it didn't stop the fresh tears from escaping the corners of his eyes. He was about to try to fall back to sleep (and probably never wake up again) when someone touched his hand and spoke gently.

"Mr. Stark? What's wrong?"

Tony froze.

He opened his eyes.

Wide, brown, doe eyes stared back at him in concern. Tony's breaths picked up. "... Peter?"

"Mr. Stark, does anything hurt? Oh God, you must be in pain. You got shot and I wasn't awake to help you fight those two dozens of guards alone and I'm so sorry, I'm gonna go call Dr. Banner now. Please hold on, Mr. Stark, I'll be quick."

"Wh-what," Tony croaked dumbly. Was he dreaming? He closed his eyes and just breathed for a while, but all he could see was Peter lying stiff on the gurney, ice-cold to touch, lifeless.

Tony opened his eyes to see Bruce walking into the room alone. "Hey, Tony, glad to see you're awake. I'll just check on your stitches, it'll be quick, okay? Tell me if anything hurts."

Tony looked around the room, over Bruce's shoulder, and saw Peter standing near the doorway, nervously fiddling with his thumbs. Maybe Tony was too much doped up in morphine that he'd started to hallucinate. He blinked a couple of times and rubbed his eyes with his free hand, but Peter was still there.

What the fuck.

"Peter," Tony mumbled.

"Just a sec, Tony. It didn't seem like there's anything wrong with your stitches. Are you hurting anywhere else?"

Tony shook his head and repeated dumbly, "Peter."

"Huh?" Bruce turned to look at Peter over his shoulder, and Tony waited until Bruce turned back around and called him crazy for hallucinating a dead kid. But then, "Oh, hey. Come over here, Pete. It's okay, he's fine."

"But he was crying in pain," Peter answered nervously, but walked closer anyway. "Uh. I'm sorry, Mr. Stark."

Tony blinked. "What for."

"What for--Because! Because I left you alone to fight them by yourselves and you got shot because of it and now you're clearly in pain and I just feel so bad!"

"What are you talking about." Tony shook his head and turned to Bruce. "I'm not hallucinating?"

"What?" Bruce's forehead creased in confusion.

"Peter. He's... he's here."

"Yeah. Shouldn't I be? I mean, I was cleared from the medbay hours ago, there was really no reason why I should stay--I wasn't shot, like a certain someone--" Peter cut himself off and started to look nervous again. "Or. Are you... Oh. You don't wanna see me. Do you want me to leave?"

"What."

Peter shuffled at his feet and looked down sadly. "I clearly pissed you off. I'm really, really sorry, Mr. Stark. I hope... I hope you'll eventually forgive me."

"Tony, what's wrong?" Bruce asked. "Peter. Stay."

"But Mr. Stark doesn't--"

"Peter, you were dead." Even saying it out loud was starting to cause him to fall into another panic attack. "Am I. Am I dreaming. What the hell is going on--"

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, Tony, calm down, okay? Be careful or you're really gonna tear your stitches."

"What are you--Mr. Stark, did they drug you and make you hallucinate?"

"No, kid, you were dead! I saw you, on the gurney, looking... looking like a corpse. You were seizing and choking and then you just stopped. You were so cold, you weren't moving." Tony kept looking at both of them back and forth, nose flaring. "You were dead and now you're not. Somebody better explain."

"Oh... oh! Mr. Stark! I'm fine!"

"You're fine?! You were having a seizure, flopping about on the gurney like a fish out of water! You were dying!"

"Wait, wait, wait. I thought you got it! You played along though so I thought you understood!"

Tony stopped, all at once. "Played along with what, Peter?!"

"With me faking a seizure to freak them out! I know you saw me give you a code, and you were nodding! I thought you understood! You played along really well too, and made them freak out, and you managed to get away while they were too busy panicking!"

"WHAT THE _FUCK_ , PETER!"

"Tony, hey! Calm down, please, your heartrate's going through the roof--"

"You were... you were faking it? But you were--you... you were in pain and choking and... what the fuck--"

But the kid was grinning proudly. "I know, right? I've been watching all these medical dramas May's so obsessed with, I think I did a pretty good job--"

"A pretty good job? You made me think you were dying! Jesus H Christ!" Tony was hyperventilating now, rubbing his throbbing chest.

"Tony! Peter, shut up for a second, let him calm down--"

"But you--Mr. Stark!"

"Oh my God." Tony gulped a large amount of air but it still felt like he couldn't breathe. "Oh, fuck. My chest. I think I'm gonna have a fucking heart attack."

Peter gasped, a look of horror on his face. "Oh, no. Oh shit! Mr. Stark! Oh shit!"

"Okay, okay, okay," Bruce said calmly, pushing an oxygen mask out of nowhere onto Tony's face. "Peter, shut up. Tony, hey. You're fine, you're okay. You're just having a panic attack. Breathe with me, okay, Tony?"

"You sure, Brucie-bear?" Tony managed through his gasps under the mask. "'Cuz it feels like my heart is gonna explode out of my ribcage."

"Just breathe with me, okay, buddy?" Bruce commanded and Tony followed the rhythm of Bruce's calm inhales and exhales. It took a few minutes until he was finally relaxed enough to glare at Peter.

Except the kid looked like a wreck, panic coating every inch of his face, eyes slightly wet. Despite everything, Tony's glare softened, but he still told the kid sternly, "Explain."

"Uhhh. What do you--what do you want me to explain?" Peter played with the loose ends in the sweater he was wearing, and then sat down on the chair next to the bed while Bruce stepped away to fiddle with the medical equipments.

"Everything. From your point of view. In case you forgot, half of my braincells took a nap when we were in captive."

"Uh, okay. Um. So, we were ambushed, right? There were these people in white coats stabbing us with some drugs. I woke up like, two minutes after that, but we were blindfolded and I didn't know where we were going. And then they put us in that room and chained us while I pretended to still be asleep. I think it wasn't until two hours later that you finally woke up and I was bored to tears."

Tony closed his eyes and inhaled, breathing in beautiful, beautiful pure oxygen.

"And then, you know, they wanted to test the serum on me--"

"You convinced me it won't work on you and five minutes later you were having a seizure and fucking dying."

"No! Mr. Stark, I was faking it! I signaled you with my eyes--"

"How was I supposed to understand that, Peter?"

"--and I messed with them and made them panic and it gave you time to release yourself from your restraints so I'm pretty sure my plan worked well!"

"Yeah, well enough to almost send me into a heart attack! Jesus, kid."

"I'm sorry, okay! I thought you understood because you played along with it and you were pretty convincing--"

"I wasn't 'playing along with it', Peter, I thought you were dying!" Tony couldn't yell with the oxygen mask on his face, but it was pretty close. "You were... god! And I couldn't do anything--"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. I really am." Peter looked remorseful and Tony wanted to rip out his own hair. "But it did work though, I gave you time to take off your cuffs."

"You didn't," Bruce said wryly and held up Tony's hand. "He didn't 'take it off'. He dislocated his own thumb so his hand could slip out of the cuffs. Helen had to reset the bones."

"What the fuck!" Peter exclaimed in horror.

"Hey, language!" Tony said absently as he moved his thumb around. It ached a little, but it was gonna be okay. "Learned that trick from Agent May. Not everyone has a supersoldier strength like you."

"I--okay okay okay." Peter shuddered.

"Okay, and then what? You were lying there after your little stunt and I fought off the guards. You said you were... sleeping?"

"It's. Uhhh. Okay, so. I don't know where to start. Dr. Banner?"

Bruce sighed. "He experienced a form of hibernation."

"Yeah, that. Did you know that some spiders hibernate during winter?"

Tony made a face. "What."

"Okay, so, that first injection that they gave me? You remember how I was complaining that it was cold?" Tony nodded and Peter continued, "I wasn't faking that. I was really, really cold. It felt like my core temperature was dropped all of a sudden and I felt like I was naked in a snowstorm. Truthfully, it helped me warm up a little when I was shaking and faking the seizure."

Tony tried his best not to recall back the sight of Peter's convulsing body. "Okay, go on."

"I don't know what they injected me with, and Dr. Banner doesn't either because I've completely burned through them and there wasn't anything that we could trace back so I don't really know what happened except that the first injection only dropped my temperature low enough to trigger the hibernation.

"So, I faked the seizure to throw them off--which worked!--and I planned on holding my breath as long as I could to throw them off even more and make them think I stopped breathing--"

 _Peter, lying stiff on the gurney, chest still._ Tony shuddered, but Peter didn't notice.

"--and then I'd leap out and kick everyone's asses, except that my body was already going through that weird spider hibernation phase that, as Dr. Banner and I have guessed, my metabolism started to rapidly slow down after that and I just passed out in a deep sleep."

"You weren't breathing at all, Peter," Tony interjected weakly, letting out a sigh. "I waited a minute to count your breaths. Your chest didn't even move an inch."

"I... I didn't know that, Mr. Stark."

Tony clenched his jaw. "I waited, put my hand on your chest. But you were... you were so still. Your skin was so cold. And your arms and legs had curled inwards, like, like a corpse. So stiff and cold." Tony demonstrated it, holding his hands in two fists and curled his arms inwards, in front of his chest. He breathed through his nose. "So I just. Grabbed you and flew us straight here. I thought I was carrying your dead body, I didn't know what I was gonna tell your Aunt May."

"Tony, hey," Bruce was suddenly on his side, rubbing his chest gently. "You're starting to panic again. Slow down your breathing, with me, okay?"

Tony nodded and closed his eyes, letting Bruce take his hand and press it on the other man's chest so he could copy his slow breaths.

Once he was calm enough, he opened one eye. Peter was biting his lip, staring down at the floor. "So?"

"You arrived here and promptly passed out, bleeding from a bullet wound on your shoulder," Bruce explained. "Helen and her team took you after you just chucked Peter into my arms and fell on your face. Peter woke up not even five minutes later."

"Yeah. As soon as whatever it was in the injections worn off," Peter said with a nod.

"So you're alright?" Tony asked, looking at Peter in the eye. "No lasting damage? No other side effects?"

"No, not at all. Dr. Banner had been observing me before you woke up. Did all kinds of tests and everything."

"Okay. Cool." Tony nodded and looked away. Now that he knew the truth, he felt fucking stupid.

A fake seizure. A weird spider hibernation. Christ. And Tony was crying and sobbing like a baby for... for nothing.

He was really, truly glad that the kid was okay. But the relief hadn't completely hit yet. He was too busy feeling embarrassed by his emotional outburst over completely nothing.

But he couldn't yet erase the images of Peter looking like a corpse from the back of his mind. Tony shuddered and closed his eyes, turning his head to the side like he wanted to bury his face into the pillow.

"Okay, you better take some rest," Bruce said, fixing the blanket over Tony. "You okay? Want me to up the morphine?"

"Nah, it's fine," Tony said dismissively, turning further to the right to hide his face and pretend to start falling asleep.

"Okay. Just holler if you need anything," Bruce said, and after a while, left the room.

Which left Peter in Tony's room, nervously tapping his shoes on the floor.

"Kid, will you stop that? I'm tryin' to sleep."

The sound stopped abruptly like Peter just froze. "Sorry, Mr. Stark," he said meekly.

Tony didn't say anything, but kept his eyes closed as he breathed slowly.

"Do you... do you want me to leave?" The kid asked in a whisper. After a moment of silence, he sighed in understanding and stood up. "I'll... I'll see you later, I guess. I'm really, really sorry, Mr. Stark."

Tony listened as Peter moved slowly toward the door, feet tapping gently on the floor as if he didn't wanna disturb the older man. Tony sighed audibly and carefully turned his body around. "Kid. Come here."

"Huh?"

"Sit down. Please."

Peter hurriedly walked back and sat down on the chair, looking at Tony expectantly, hopefully. "I'm--I'm sorry."

"Would you quit it? Apologies give me hives." Tony tried to lighten it up, but the kid still looked like a kicked puppy. "Hey. It's okay. I'm not mad. I was just... overwhelmed."

Peter nodded, and inched the chair closer to the bed.

"You need to. You need to remember I've got a heart condition, okay, kiddo? You can't just... do that," Tony said weakly.

"Okay. No fake seizures next time?"

Tony chuckled. "There won't be a next time. I won't let it happen again."

"I'm still really sorry. You got shot because of me." Peter rubbed the back of his neck. "I could have helped, but I went into a stupid hibernation and you got hurt and I didn't do anything to help."

"Stop that. It was just one bullet. I've gotten worse." Peter only looked more stricken after that, so Tony opened his arms and said, "Come here."

"What."

"Come here, kid. I'm trying to give you a hug," Tony grumbled. "Be gentle on my left side, though."

Peter enthusiastically moved forward into Tony's chest, but he was careful enough not to aggravate the bullet wound. "Hope you feel better, Mr. Stark."

"Yeah, kid." Tony put a hand on the back of the kid's head. "We're gonna have a long talk, after this, alright? But I really need that sleep."

Tony held the kid just a while longer, taking in the warmth from Peter's body and the soft _thump thump thump_ of his heart.

Alive and safe. That was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some spiders do actually hibernate in the cold, and hold their legs close into the center of their body to preserve heat. or so from what i've gathered from a quick trip in google land.


End file.
